Giving Thanks

There are a million things to be thankful for this year, as with every year.  I have the best family in the world.  I've been blessed with many things that others do without on a daily basis:  job, house, car, clothes.  It's not something I take lightly or advantage of on any occasion.   I thank God for it all every single day. 
And on that note, let's get back to books!  :)
So I had to pick a book for Book Club.  This was a decision of great importance seeing as how I did not like a single book we have read so far this year.  My book club consists of other professional women my age, so I figured they wouldn't appreciate my love for YA paranormal fiction.  It turns out, maybe I should have tried to sell them on it any way.  I ended up choosing Jodi Picoult because her books have been made into many Lifetime movies and I figured I couldn't go wrong.  Well guess what??? I did.
Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult
This book is about a woman who catches her husband in bed with another woman and ends up going through a divorce.  It seems as though that isn't the worst it could get.  Mariah's daughter then begins to talk to an imaginary friend, it turns out that her imaginary "guide" is actually God.  I find absolutely nothing wrong with talking to God, I do it on a regular basis.  However, Faith, the daughter, not only talks to God, but she heals people too.  She heals them of disease, depression, autism, death.  Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking.  So was I.  Second coming??? Could have been, but the book just played it off into part of the melodrama that the mother was dealing with in the divorce.   As if that was more important.  Hello???? Crazy woman??? Your daughter is talking to God AND raising people from the dead.  No one cares if your husband is a loser!  So needless to say, this was another Book Club book on my "thumbs down" list.  Wait until I have to explain this to the girls!

Catching Up

I love to get cute things.  Anything that makes me smile.  I had a REALLY rough week last week with getting grades together for the end of the first quarter.  Then to get monogrammed "Pumpkin doodles" from one of my students made all of the stress worth it.  So now that I'm caught up with my grades, I can catch up with my book reviews.

The Mind Games by Lori Brighton
This is the last book(#3) in her series titled The Mind Readers.  I was drawn into the Mind Readers series by the originality of the subject matte for me at that time.  I was still new to YA and had only read a few books.  80 books later, I have found that it's not that original of a concept.  Young girl doesn't know she can read thoughts, finds out there's more of her, goes to find them, finds out there are good and evil versions, falls in love, mistakes her boyfriend for the enemy, runs away, finds boyfriend,  gets separated from boyfriend, vows to find him.  And that's just the first two!  In the last book, along with finding her boyfriend, who is being held captive by her father of course, she comes to many realizations about herself and her life.  The only problem is, that these realizations came in the last 10% of the book.  I'll have to admit, I was kind of disappointed with the rushed conclusion of the book.  It left me a little confused and still questioning.  But maybe that's what the author was going for.  Book 4 maybe?  That would be nice.

Nothing New

I imagine that you shouldn't be surprised by now to know that I've gotten behind on my vow already to update my blog on a regular basis.  It's funny how I can get behind on blogging, but I stay ahead of reading.  I also got my grades turned in on time if that helps! So here's what I've read in the past two weeks and my thoughts. If you don't like spoilers, don't read all the way through!
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (http://stiryourtea.blogspot.com)
This book was amazing! Well-written, well-thought. I'm such a sucker for a great romance with some action.  Juliette is a post -apocalyptic girl who has been held captive by The Reestablishment.  Food supplies are down, diseases are taking over, animals are dead and there's something wrong with her. Everyone that she touches or touches her dies.  Except for one young man.  Only he works for the enemy.  I really like how this book develops. Tahereh know exactly how to get you drawn in. The story flowed so well that I couldn't put it down.  Although I love when this happens, I also hate it because that means I'll have to buy another immediately.  The ending left you wanting more and of course the sequel Unravel Me doesn't come out until next year.  I do plan on reading Destroy Me in the meantime which is a novella based on the original. Will keep you informed.

Great Idea

So after having the typical "mommy" day.  You know, the one with football games and birthday parties, I called my niece to check on her for the week. The advantage to being on the go, is being offered lots of great ideas to make your life easier.  The two ideas that put me into action today were:
1. Get a library card - I read a minimum of two books per week.  I have no idea how it started, but last summer, I didn't have anything to read on a plane ride to Arizona, so I picked up a book.  Before the plane ride was over, I was on my second book.  One year and 77+ books later, here I am still buying books.  At a birthday party for a 4-year old this morning, my friend suggested I get a library card instead of investing all of my weekly salary in amazon.com.  Don't get me wrong, I love amazon.com, but I tend to purchase books on a daily basis.  It turns out, that I can borrow all of these books online.  Lo and behold, I get to the city library and IT'S UNDER RENOVATION!!! Only in my life....  Any way, they still gave me a library card, and I can't wait to see if it works...in three weeks.  Although, I still haven't figured out what a physical renovation has to do with getting a book online.  I guess that's not for me to do.
2.  Renew Your Blog - I started blogging last year, as you can see from my last post.  But after getting the advice, it reminded me that I already had one, I just needed to give it some love more often.  Since I've turned into this reading fanatic, I think I'll offer my opinion of the books that I read.  If you're a fan of books, this could be of service to you.  If not, you can just hear me rant about what I think about them.  It'll also save my husband's ears from having to hear about all of these characters he could give a blip less about.

A Few of My Favorite Things - 4/10/11

So, I've been trying to figure out what to do with my life for a while.  Admittedly, I'm not a writer.  I haven't written for others to read since high school.  So what makes me special you ask?  Absolutely nothing.  I am a 30-year-old mother of two beautiful daughters and a wife to a wonderful husband.  I act as a taxi to many practices and rehearsals.  I'm your every day mom.  People ask me what I do in my free time and I say..what free time?  Of course, I'm sure many of you do too.  There are some things, that I think I do have to share.  In my daily life, I do run across a few things that make life easier or more enjoyable.  And if they make my life enjoyable, then maybe they will help you too.
Apps of the Week:
I love my church.  I go to church for service purposes, at least twice a week.  For purposes of involvement/ministry/outreach, that number increases to about 5 times aweek.  I've reduced carrying my Bible around to a phone app, which I'm sure many people have.  The app I prefer (I have a Droid) is the "Bible" app.  It comes with the capability of posting to Twitter and Facebook (both of which I use a lot), taking notes, searching for live events in your area, reading plans, and my favorite part, it will switch bible versions. This is where my favorite part comes in, I have discovered the Message Bible version.  For those of you who never thought they could read the Bible because it was hard to understand, you can understand this one!  It puts the Bible in real-life terms.  Incredible!
My second favorite Droid app of the week is All Recipes.  You can tell this app what you want to cook for dinner, how long you want to cook it and it will spit out tons of recipes each with their own reviews.  Talk about time saver!  Instead of what should I cook tonight, it turns it into what shall I do with that chicken in my freezer tonight.
Shows of the week:
Pregnant in Heels - okay, I watched this show for the first time in between trips to practice this week.  It was enthralling.  For all of us everyday mothers that don't have time, money or energy to do half of what we do, this show make me appreciate it all.  I'll leave it up to you to make your own judgements, but let's just say that if I were to be able to hire a focus group, it darn wouldn't be to decided what to name my child!  Watch, and tell me what you think!
Burden of Proof - aside from the mandatory, "who-dun-it" portion of this show, the personal issues that Dana Delaney's character face are far more enthralling.  We all have those moments when we don't know if our efforts at motherhood are in vain, but her struggle is real and makes this show worth watching.
Well, I hope you enjoy a couple of my likes this week.  I have a lot of time to search things and have come to enjoy it.  If there's something you're looking for, a website, movie, tv show, app, recipe, let me know.  It'll give me something to do while I wait for my daughter to get out of practice.